Alan Cumming is no longer “an alien of extraordinary ability,” according to the U.S. government.

Speaking in the brogue of his native Scotland during a recent phone interview, he said, “I wanted to vote for Obama, that’s why I became a citizen.

“Basically, I was a resident here, I owned property here. I paid taxes here. The only thing you can’t do with a green card is vote,” he said.

“When Obama started to run, I started the process. Of course, the immigration system is a bit more complicated and long-winded and laborious than it used to be, and I actually didn’t become a citizen until three days after he got in. So I missed voting for him.”

But the process paid off in another way. It gave Cumming the idea for his one-man show “I Bought a Blue Car Today,” which he premiered in New York, performed in London and brings to the Orange County Performing Arts Center Saturday for its California debut. From there, he takes it to the Geffen Playhouse in Los Angeles beginning Tuesday for eight performances.

“In the test you have to take to become a citizen, you have to sort of prove your prowess at English,” he said. So when the examiner read the sentence about the car, he had to write it down.

“I thought it was kind of sweet initially, and then I realized it’s all about gas guzzling and consumerism, and it was kind of an awful sentence actually,” he said. “It encapsulates both the energy and financial crisis in one sentence. So I decided to make that the title of my show and of the album as well.”

An album of songs from the show is planned for release in time for the California performances.

Cumming first came to the United States in 1996 to promote a film, “Circle of Friends,” and ended up staying in Los Angeles a year to make two films. He came back in 1998 to star on Broadway as the Emcee in “Cabaret” (for which he won a Tony Award) and has been in America ever since.

Currently, he can be seen on PBS hosting “Masterpiece Mystery!” He also has completed five films for upcoming release and will be playing the title hero in the musical version of “Spider-Man” on Broadway next year.

His one-man show is a mix of stories about his encounter with America, interspersed with songs, that he thinks of as a theatrical show rather than a concert.

“I act the songs, in that I think of each song as a different character, and I completely get into the song, like I would a character in a play or a film,” he said. “I’m not like a pop singer. That’s the only way that I can connect to the songs, and so I act them.

“And then in the middle of the songs are the stories I tell about me being a fish out of water, because of the fact that I never even visited America until I was 30, and 10 years later, I’m here, and I’m a citizen and I live here.”

He may be a new citizen, but Cumming already has mastered the American style of speaking his mind. During his swearing-in ceremony, he said, he was impressed with the mixture of new citizens.

“They went through the alphabet of all the different countries,” he said. “America is a land of immigrants. It started like that, and it still is. I think that’s why I find it’s so hard to understand the level of racism and xenophobia, when you think, crikey, we’re all immigrants, and it’s only a couple of hundred years since the oldest family were immigrants, too. I think that’s something that Americans have quickly forgotten.”

Though some of the same attitudes are found in Great Britain, Cumming said, the closeness of the island to Europe means British citizens have more opportunity to encounter different cultures, countries and religions.

“And I think xenophobia, racism and bigotry of all kinds really comes about because people are ignorant of other people’s experiences,” he said. “When they do start to experience them, the xenophobia and racism go away, because they become more understanding and unafraid of the other.”

Does he bring some of this up during the show?

“No,” he said. “Maybe I should add it. In the show I talk about so many popular cultural references and iconic American things that meant nothing to me, and I suddenly had to learn very fast.

“One of the biggest things I think that’s really interesting that I don’t think people appreciate here is how enmeshed religion is in politics,” he said. “For example, in Britain, that the prime minister would end a speech with `God bless Britain’ would never happen. That would be just insane for that to happen. People would be furious. When that happens, I always want to say, `Well, which god? Who are you referring to? Whose god?’ ”

Does this come up in the show? “No, it doesn’t,” he said with a laugh. “Maybe it should.”

What does come up? In terms of the songs, he said there’s a personal connection to each one.

“Even though they’re well-known songs, a lot of the songs sort of relate to me. There’s something about me, Alan, that I reveal in the show that kind of connects me and the audience a bit more to the song.”

One of the songs is “Mein Herr,” from “Cabaret.” “The song is normally sung by a woman,” he said. “It’s a song about saying goodbye to a man that you’ve had a love affair with. I kind of take it and make it a little more aggressive and a bit more about a man brushing another man aside.

“And I think that in a way that people kind of maybe know about me, about my sexuality and stuff like that,” he said. “And there’s also a connection to `Cabaret,’ and what that meant to my life. So all those things kind of connect.”

As for his stories between the songs, “I talk about the citizenship class,” he said. “And I talk about the fact that I got married in Britain to a man, and you don’t have the same rights as other citizens in America if you’re not straight. That’s one big thing.”

But despite his criticisms, don’t expect Cumming to attack his new country.

“I just did the show in London, and I think it’s too easy to kind of America bash,” he said. “And why would I America bash? I’ve chosen to make my life here. I love America. I think it’s great. Of course, there’s things that I think are awful about it, and there’s things that are brilliant about it. And I think I have a very keen, objective and different perspective on it.

“But the whole point of me doing this show is that I’m celebrating the fact that I became a citizen of this country at a time in its history that I think is really exciting.”

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